JLA/Avengers stands out, with that George Perez cover art for issue #3 being amazing, as does X-Men/Titans. In areas not involving Marvel or DC, I quite liked the recent Worldscape storyline from Dynamite's Pathfinder comics.

Okay, so I just found out that late last year they released a Masters of the Universe and ThunderCats crossover, and as a child of the 80's I was honor bound to pick it up. I had read no reviews for it, knew nothing about it other than it was a recent crossover of two cartoons I loved as a kid, and had zero expectations for it. I figured if it was bad, I'd just sell it the next time I was a half-price book store.

Having finished reading it, I can say only that they will have to pry this book out of my cold dead hands because OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I LOVED THIS BOOK!

Seriously, I've been on this real out of the park run of fun crossovers lately. Future Quest, Mega-Man / Sonic (which basically became Capcom / SEGA), Ghostbusters / Ninja Turtles, Ninja Turtles / Batman, the live action Ghostbusters / the Real Ghostbusters, all of them were AMAZING. Even the Hasbro-verse crossover (G.I. Joe, Transformers, Action Man, MASK, Rom, Micronauts) series Revolution, while clunky and not as good as the others, was still a lot of fun in its own way.

ThunderCats vs MotU was another fantastic one. It was just . . . so . . . FUN. The dialogue was fun, the action scenes were great, the banter was hilarious, they even fit in some genuine character moments, it was a love letter to both franchises. The only problems I really had with it was that it wrapped up pretty quickly at the end and that it was only 6 issues long.

Seriously, if you know ANYTHING about either franchise, check this out.

On a more serious note:my favorite will&shall always be G.I.Joe/Transformers(the current Revolutions thing was ok,if a little overcrowded),as like Ares,i too am a child of the 80's and love my cartoons.An inresting note for this one;it was technically both the first comic&cartoon crossover Hasbro/Marvel ever did......Seriously,there are several supporting cartoon characters that show up in Marvel cartoons:Hector Rivera,a mainstay NPC in GIJoe:RAH showed up for the trial of Beast in the Jubilee X-Men series and at 2 more time afterward .

I've heard that IDW is in danger of, or will be losing their Hasbro license pretty soon, which I can't say I'm honestly too sad to hear about. While they did some interesting things with Transformers (they gave Megatron a Heel/Face Turn that was believable), overall I'm kind of disappointed in their merged Hasbro-verse, which had the potential to be a lot of fun, but ultimately at best was kind of meh, and at worst infuriating. Hiring people like Aubrey Sitterson and Mags Visaggio was already a bad move, and the pair went on to do some real damage to franchises like G.I.Joe, and while trying to re-introduce old franchises like the Visionaries.

In other news, I picked up some new crossover stuff, some of it good, some of it bad.

On the good, I got Ghostbusters/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vol.2, a sequel to the previous crossover. Both of them are VERY good, and I'd highly recommend them. The IDW Ghostbuster book in general is just gold.

I also got the Batman: The Animated Series/TMNT crossover, and while its' based on the CGI cartoon (with the most grating version of Mikey ever), it was still a LOT of fun, very well done, and they actually managed to make this version of Mikey funny at points and mostly tolerable at other times.

I don't want to spoil anything more than the above because, well, they're a lot of fun, and you should get them yourself. The Turtles at one point are wielding Proton-upgraded ninja weapons to beat up some ghosts, it's amazing.

On the bad side, I also picked up Kings Watch and Kings Quest, a Dynamite book meant to do a fun crossover of the Kings Feature characters like Flash Gordon, the Phantom, Mandrake the Magician, Lothar and Prince Valiant. As a Defenders of the Earth fan, I was hoping this was basically going to be there version of Future Quest, a book I loved to pieces. And the plot was actually pretty cool, with the idea of Ming using some human cultists to open up a gateway between Earth and Mongo, allowing all of the weird creatures and Ming's army to run rampant across the globe. Unfortunately, the story doesn't really do the concept justice, and neither does the presentations of the characters. Flash Gordon is turned into a shallow, dense college kid with none of the charisma or leadership the character is known for. Mandrake comes off just fine, but Lothar and the Phantom don't get much personality to speak of. And during the course of the story, they kill off the Phantom and have Lothar take up his mantle while searching out for the next holder of the Phantom legacy. And instead of being any flavor of Kit Walker, the traditional Phantom, it's a character they invented for this series, a kind of ditzy red-head who is also a lesbian, who is in a relationship with Dale, Flash's traditional love interest. And when Lothar tries to pass on the Phantom legacy to her, she says, "Nah, screw that whole tradition thing, we'll BOTH be the Phantom!"

I was just . . . it was bad. It got worse in the follow up book with really bad art and a story that got worse and worse. This was pretty much the anti-Future Quest. It's actually amazing how Future Quest managed to pull off some of the things Kings Watch tried, but more successfully. Future Quest introduced a new Mightor who was a young black kid who Shazamed into an adult super-form, they introduced a new female member of the Impossibles, and they introduced this new kick-ass Indian secret agent woman who was retconned into being Birdman's boss. And you know what? They did a great job in how they pulled it all off. Because they treated the classic characters with respect, their identities with respect, they were allowed to do awesome things, and they did it in a way that didn't feel forced.

Kings Watch actively worked against the legacy of Flash Gordon, making him almost unrecognizable. They also managed to pull a double replacement by killing off the Phantom and replacing him with both Lothar and a newly introduced girl for double the points. It's especially bad because Lothar HAD his own personality and character and could have worked just fine on his own. But instead of letting him be himself, they make him into the Phantom, just sticking him into a more recognizable identity. It really felt like they were going for maximum SJW points by taking the second most iconic of the Kings characters and replacing him with someone not-white (because the Phantom legacy is apparently a "Mighty Whitey" trope) and with a lesbian (because we want the Phantom bloodline to end, apparently). The story would have been bad on its own, but this just added insult to injury with the same sort of stuff Marvel's been pulling for the last 5 years.

And I remind you, Future Quest also replaced a white hero with a minority one, but the quality of the story, the respect given to the legacy of said hero and the way it was done sold me on it completely. Which just proves something I've always said: legacy heroes of a different gender and race aren't in and of themselves the problem. The problem is the execution.

I'll be reading up on this Pathfinder / Red Sonja / Tarzan / John Carter of Mars crossover Paizo did recently, I'll give my thoughts on it when I'm done.

So I just gave Worldscape a read, which is the aforementioned Pathfinder crossover with several other pulp heroes. I'd say it was a lot of fun as well, the writers clearly having a blast drawing on all of these diverse genres and heroes. Interestingly enough, of the iconic guest stars like John Carter, Red Sonja and Tarzan, Tarzan was the one afforded the most in-universe respect by the other heroes. This is reflected in his RPG character write-up at the end of the book, where he has a Challenge Rating of 11 to John Carter's 10 and Sonja's 7. Makes me wonder where Conan would have rated.

But overall it was a lot of fun, and if you've got an interest in Pathfinders or Pulp Fantasy/Swords and Sorcery, it's a good read.

So I just gave Worldscape a read, which is the aforementioned Pathfinder crossover with several other pulp heroes. I'd say it was a lot of fun as well, the writers clearly having a blast drawing on all of these diverse genres and heroes. Interestingly enough, of the iconic guest stars like John Carter, Red Sonja and Tarzan, Tarzan was the one afforded the most in-universe respect by the other heroes. This is reflected in his RPG character write-up at the end of the book, where he has a Challenge Rating of 11 to John Carter's 10 and Sonja's 7. Makes me wonder where Conan would have rated.

But overall it was a lot of fun, and if you've got an interest in Pathfinders or Pulp Fantasy/Swords and Sorcery, it's a good read.

That's really weird that Tarzan and John Carter are so far ahead of Red Sonja. What does Tarzan do that puts him so far ahead? And aside from Carter getting a big boost while on Mars (which every human would get), I don't remember him being all that special otherwise.

That's really weird that Tarzan and John Carter are so far ahead of Red Sonja. What does Tarzan do that puts him so far ahead? And aside from Carter getting a big boost while on Mars (which every human would get), I don't remember him being all that special otherwise.

Due to how Worldscape works, characters are taken at "the height of their power", so while every other human on Worldscape only had their natural human physical abilities, John retained his enhanced strength, leaping abilities and psychic abilities as if he was still on Mars. So in that way, it kind o makes sense for the higher CR, given he was basically movie Captain America who could leap like the Hulk. What's funny though is that, while John is under mind-control, he and Sonja get into a fight, and Sonja actually wins, or at least has him at her mercy at one point, making the whole CR ratings seem contradictory anyway.

As for Tarzan, he actually appeared the least of the trio, only appearing briefly near the end due to a very important responsibility. But when he does, he's able to take down this giant warrior ape and strangle it to death, when that same ape slapped Sonja aside like she was a 3rd level commoner. I know in the old Pulp stories Tarzan WAS supremely badass, on a Conan level, but here he was treated as this kind of "sleeping giant" who had to remain in one spot to safeguard the world, and his appearance was a game changer.

This is reflected in his RPG character write-up at the end of the book, where he has a Challenge Rating of 11 to John Carter's 10 and Sonja's 7. Makes me wonder where Conan would have rated.

Since the version of Sonja they were using has duelled with Conan as an equal, probably the same as her. (I believe that this was explicitly stated in Paizo articles published when these comics were serialized.) Of course, if they took him from around the time of The Phoenix on the Sword, he'd probably be higher level but older.

This is reflected in his RPG character write-up at the end of the book, where he has a Challenge Rating of 11 to John Carter's 10 and Sonja's 7. Makes me wonder where Conan would have rated.

Since the version of Sonja they were using has duelled with Conan as an equal, probably the same as her. (I believe that this was explicitly stated in Paizo articles published when these comics were serialized.) Of course, if they took him from around the time of The Phoenix on the Sword, he'd probably be higher level but older.

Odd Sonya was rated THAT much lower then, as I too recall Sonja essentially mostly being portrayed as Conan's equal-she didn't approach his strength and stamina, of course, but was more agile, and slightly more skilled with a sword. The height of HER power would be in first incarnation, when augmented by the goddess Scathach. And rivaling Conan should put her at least near Tarzan's level-Conan's athletic feats match those of the Jungle Lord (The Cimmerian once broke the neck of a Velociraptor, survived crucifixion without permanent harm, scale sheer cliffs).